Balzac excels in the portrayal of youth who are poor, as they almost always are, entering into their first struggles with life, prey to the temptation of pleasures and luxury, and experiencing profound miseries due to their high hopes. Valentin, Rastignac, Bianchon, d'Arthez, Lucien de Rubempré, Lousteau, have all sunk their beautiful teeth into the tough meat of the angry cow, fortifying food for robust stomachs, indigestible for weak stomachs; he does not lodge them, these beautiful young ones without a sou, in conventional garrets decorated with Persian rugs, with windows festooned with sweet peas and looking out on gardens; he does not have them eat "some simple dishes, prepared by the hand of nature," and does not dress them in luxurious garments, but in those that are proper and practical; he puts them in the boarding house of Mother Vauquer, or forces them to crouch under the sharp angle of a roof, he presses them into greasy tables at mean little restaurants, dressing them in black clothing with gray seams, and he is not afraid to send them to the pawn shop, if they still have, a rare occurrence, their father's watch. Oh Corinne, you who allows, upon Cape Misèna, your snowy arm to dangle across your ivory lyre, while the son of Albion, draped in a superb new coat, and shod in his beloved perfectly polished boots, reflects on you and listens to you in an elegant pose, Corinne, what would you have said to such heroes? They have however one small quality that was lacking in Oswald, they live, and of a life so robust that it seems like one has encountered them one thousand times; also Pauline, Delphine de Nucingen, the princess of Cadignan, Madame de Bargeton, Coralie, Esther, are madly infatuated with them.